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As Mayor Jim Watson himself said in his opening speech to council, the budget released Wednesday has something for everyone.

“There are many items contained in Budget 2013 that will assist citizens in each and every ward and each and every neighbourhood right across this wonderful city,” said Watson.

That, of course, is the real secret to the success of any budget — dole out the goodies across wards and across city interests.

That way, there’s nothing terribly offensive, but everyone gets their piece of the pie.

And so it is that Watson himself shepherded a budget — along with staff — that will be almost impossible for his council colleagues to reject.

Even when the city is finding itself limiting funeral services for the less-advantaged and reducing new eyewear from three years to five for that same group, the city found $2 million toward the design of a pedestrian bridge from Fifth Ave. to Clegg St.

That will surely keep Capital Coun. David Chernushenko happy, and it’s a little reward for his woes with Lansdowne Park.

That’s but one example of where Watson made sure all of council has something at risk if they think of picking and choosing among the goodies being handed out.

It’s not a new strategy, but done as well as Watson, it’s extremely effective.

Let’s be clear here.

Watson promised taxpayers he’d never go over a 2.5% tax increase and he hasn’t. And for that, he deserves kudos. Others before him have made promises they had no realistic chance of keeping.

But unfortunately, in trying to please everyone just a little bit, Watson has avoided — as so many before him have — actually defining basic city services.

And that’s a real problem.

For example, in these extremely tough times, the draft 2013 budget keeps a commitment previously made for an additional $1 million for arts and heritage.

That will secure support from the few left-leaning councillors still around the table — and isn’t so egregious that the right-wing councillors would reject the document based simply on that.

Back in February, city council approved increased funding to arts and culture to the tune of $1 million.

A thriving arts and culture community is lovely. But look at the report from last February, where council voted to increase — as part of the $1 million goodie-package — something called “peer-assessed cultural funding programs to facilitate delivery of renewed actions and priorities by community cultural partners — that goes to $330,000.”

Does anyone, save for a few bureaucrats, even know what this means? Doubt it.

And while he’d never comment publicly, you have to wonder how community and services general manager Aaron Burry really feels about cutting funeral services to fund “cultural facility operating funding.”

As always, there are some shell games going on.

While council was told there is no new debt in this budget, that’s not exactly true.

This year, the city retired more than $16 million in previously issued debt. So what did they do? They reissued that debt, of course.

So while the debt could have been reduced, it’s staying the course.

And then there’s the number of employees, which staff happily pronounced was reduced this year by 139. In fact most of those positions haven’t existed for some time. They were cut under previous cost-saving efforts, but never taken off the books.

So no savings there. The actual number of positions cut is 42, for a savings of $3.5 million.

And let’s not forget about the water and sewer bill. That will be going up around $50 when it gets to council in 2013, according to city treasurer Marian Simulik.